There our guide called up three savage-looking natives with spears, whom he described to be the natives of the hill, and they accompanied us to the top.  With some difficulty we led our horses near the crest, our new friends always keeping the vantage ground of us, apparently from apprehension.  At length I planted my theodolite on the highest part of the summit which commanded a fine view of the western horizon; and from the mouths of my sable guides I obtained the native names, in all their purity, of the various hills in sight.  The most distant, named Bolloon, were said to be near the great lake Cudjallagong—­no doubt Regent’s Lake of Oxley—­and a peak they called Tolga I took to be Hurd’s Peak of the same traveller.

NYORORONG.

Still I saw nothing on the horizon in the direction of his Mount Granard, and in no other any hill of magnitude, except in the quarter whence I came, where I still discerned my old friends Marga and Nangar, with Nyororong and Berabidjal, high hills more to the southward.

Mount Cunningham consists of ferruginous sandstone.  The sun had reached the horizon before I left the summit, which I did not until I had obtained an angle on every visible point.  We arrived at the camp soon after seven o’clock.  Latitude by an observation of Cor Leonis 33 degrees 15 minutes 27 seconds South.

MR. OXLEY’S TREE.

March 30.

I ascertained accidentally this morning that we were abreast of the spot where Mr. Oxley left the Lachlan and proceeded southward.  This I learnt from a marked tree which a native pointed out to me distant about 250 yards south from our camp, on the opposite side of a branch of the river.  On this tree were still legible the names of Mr. Oxley and Mr. Evans; and although the inscription had been there nineteen years the tree seemed still in full vigour; nor could its girth have altered much, judging from the letters which were still as sharp as when first cut, only the bark having overgrown part of them had been recently cleared away a little as if to render the letters more legible.  I endeavoured to preserve still longer an inscription which had withstood the fires of the bush and the tomahawks of the natives for such a length of time by making a drawing of it as it then appeared.

By Mr. Oxley’s journal we learn that where the river formed two branches he, on the 17th of May, 1817, hauled up his boats, and on the following day commenced his intended journey towards the south-east.  But our latitudes also assisted us in verifying the spot.  Mr. Oxley made the latitude of his camp (doubtless near the tree) 33 degrees 15 minutes 34 seconds South which gives a difference of seven seconds for the 250 yards between the tree and my camp.  The variation of the needle Mr. Oxley found to be here, in 1817, 7 degrees 0 minutes 8 seconds East and I had made it at the last camp (Merimbah) 8 degrees 54 minutes 15 seconds East, or nearly two degrees more, in a lapse of 19 years.  The longitude of this point as now ascertained by trigonometrical measurement from Parramatta was 147 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds East, or 17 minutes 50 seconds (equal on this parallel to 17 1/4 miles) nearer to Sydney than it is laid down by Mr. Oxley.